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Dr. George S. Stanford

The IFR vs the LFTR: An Exchange of Emails

George S. Stanford, Per F. Peterson and Dan Meneley

G. Stanford wrote (11-29-10):

We'll see what others on this list have to say, but in my opinion, Carlsen's enthusiasm for thorium is premature, to say the least. The ONLY significant advantage a thorium cycle would have over fast reactors with metallic fuel (IFR/PRISM) is its lower requirement for start up fissile. That advantage is offset by the fact that the thorium reactor is at a stage of development roughly equivalent to where the IFR was in 1975 -- a promising idea with a lot of R&D needed to before it's ready for a commercial demonstration -- which puts its deployment about 20 years behind what could be the IFR's schedule. The thorium community has not yet even agreed on what will be the optimum thorium technology to pursue.

I think that thorium should indeed be investigated as a possible future competitor for the IFR. But what would be gained by putting off demonstrating the IFR/PRISM technology while waiting to see if thorium really lives up to its promise? Nothing would be lost by getting a fleet of IFRs up and running. They could be breeding fissile for decades while a possible thorium fleet gets up and running, and the IFR-bred fissile -- several times more than was started with -- could be used for expanding the hypothetical thorium fleet at the end of the IFRs' lifetimes.

Is A Traveling Wave Reactor Better than an IFR?

Comments on TerraPower’s Travelling Wave Reactor (printable PDF version here)

By Dr George S. Stanford. George is is a nuclear reactor physicist, part of the team that developed the Integral Fast Reactor. He is now retired from Argonne National Laboratory after a career of experimental work pertaining to power-reactor safety. He is the co-author of Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry.

We hear from time to time about the Traveling Wave Reactor (TWR) that is being developed by TerraPower, an organization sponsored by Bill Gates. The developers are keeping many of the technical details to themselves. However, from the available info about the TWR, one can make some ball-park calculations. Some assumptions are necessary, because better numbers have not, to my knowledge, been revealed. If anyone has better info, please come forward.

Fact 1: In generating 1 GWe-yr of energy, any nuclear reactor necessarily fissions about 1 tonne of heavy metal, creating 1 tonne of fission products.

Fact 2: The TWR is based on the technology of the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor), developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the ’80s and ’90s — it uses metallic fuel and is cooled by liquid sodium. In effect, the TWR is a very large IFR (in size, not in GWe) that forgoes reprocessing, storing its fission products in the used part of the core (behind the traveling wave). This pushes the disposal problem perhaps 60 or more years into the future. Unlike the IFR, the TWR does not completely burn its fuel, and leaves behind a mixture of transuranic actinides — which perhaps eventually could be recycled (not clear).

Fact 3: In commercial readiness, the TWR is at least a decade or two behind the IFR.

Read more about the comparrison between Traveling Wave Reactors and IFR's

Why Forge Ahead With IFRs?

There are good reasons to forge ahead with IFRs. Here are some:

1. Eighty years of waste from 1000 (1-GWe) reactors would leave enough used fuel for 10 or 20 Yucca Mountains.

2. The environmental effects of accelerated uranium mining will impinge increasingly on the public's consciousness. Resistance to uranium mining is already growing.

3. The accumulating plutonium inventory will, rightly or wrongly, be seen as an ever-increasing proliferation risk,

4. The multiplying need for uranium enrichment means the spread of centrifuge technology and loss of international control of that technology, with serious proliferation implications.

5. Since China, India, Russia, et al. are forging ahead with their fast-reactor programs, technological leadership will continue to move in that direction.

6. The concomitant spread of fuel-processing technology will mean loss of international control of that technology, with further serious proliferation implications.

7. No nation can make nuclear weapons without either enrichment or reprocessing facilities, regardless of how many reactors it has. The loss of U.S. technological leadership will mean the loss of ability to bring order to the global development and deployment of nuclear technology, with the consequent uninhibited spread of proliferation potential.

8. The institutional knowledge of the U.S.-developed IFR technology is rapidly dying off, accelerating the North American descent to second-class technological status.

Reprocessing is the Answer

George S. Stanford, Gerald E. Marsh, and William Hannum

BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, 31 August 2009

Article Highlights

Advancements in nuclear power should help the world move beyond fossil fuels.
In particular, spent fuel recycling with fast reactors would solve some of the most vexing problems facing conventional nuclear power.
Other benefits include reducing weapons proliferation risks and excess plutonium and uranium stockpiles.

Bombs, Reprocessing, and Reactor Grade Plutonium

Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford

FORUM ON PHYSICS & SOCIETY of The American Physical Society Newsletter
April 2006, Vol. 35, No. 2

A recent, ill-conceived call to action from the Union of Concerned Scientists says this:

“In his State of the Union address, President Bush called for investment in ‘clean, safe nuclear energy.’ This seemingly harmless phrase, however,